


I Know Deep Down

by hisen



Category: Naruto
Genre: A pines while loaning B their coat, Character A suddenly realizes that they've been pining for B and didn't know it, Coats, Feelings Realization, Love Confessions, M/M, Oblivious Uzumaki Naruto, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26467363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hisen/pseuds/hisen
Summary: Naruto loaning Sai his jacket to warm him up after accidentally pushing him into a lake is just a kind gesture. Or at least, that's how Naruto thinks it will play out.(It is not how it plays out.)
Relationships: Sai/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 137
Collections: Team 7 🌀, pine4pine 2020, why im sleep deprived 💖✨





	I Know Deep Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hmweasley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmweasley/gifts).



The fire flickered, cast jumping shadows on the trees. It cast shadows onto Sai as well, as they sat next to each other by the fire. Naruto caught the blue shadows flitting over his skin, before a different thought grabbed his attention. Sai, despite his blank expression and his lack of shivering, was edging closer to the fire. 

"I knew it! You are cold!" Sai looked up from the flames to him. 

"I don't feel the cold." The smile came onto Sai's face, the smile that didn't reach his eyes and always made him shut them to hide that they didn't. Naruto was getting wise to it and scowled. "I'm not a wuss like you." 

"I'm not a-" Naruto realised he'd taken the bait to change the subject and cut himself off. If Sai thought that alone would put him off though, he really didn't get him at all. "You fell into a lake."

"Because of you." The shift in Sai's smile said he hadn't forgiven Naruto for that series of events. 

"I didn't mean to do it!" They split into two teams for this mission, Sakura and Yamato were ahead of them. It'd been fine, until they were ambushed at dusk. During the fight Sai ended up getting pushed into the lake behind their backs. Sai was right it'd been his fault, one of his shadow clones was a little overenthusiastic and accidentally pushed Sai into the water in the middle of executing an attack.

The sight of Sai vanishing under the surface of the water had sent a spike of fear through the clone. Sai, of course, had been fine, immediately bobbed back up from under the water and launched a jutsu without even getting out of the water. Sai hadn't hesitated but his clone had. The team they were fighting decided to pull back, fled from the battle and left Sai, Naruto, and his twenty clones, alone. 

He hadn't expected to get anything of note when the clones vanished, expected it to feel like normal. The rush of fear from the clone who'd watched Sai fall hit him with an unexpected force. Naruto spun on his heel and ran over to the edge of the lake, the fear suddenly his as much as it was his clone's a minute before. His clone saw Sai come back up, but what if he went back under afterwards?

Sai was paddling over to the edge of the lake. Naruto was there as he reached the shore, ready to help him. He dropped into a crouch, holding out his hands to help pull him out of the lake. Sai paused, his dark hair sticking damply to his face, took a close look at Naruto's hands before looking up to meet his eyes. His face was blank and Naruto wiggled his fingers, trying to encourage him to take his hands to pull him out. 

"Why are you so careless?" The words cut into him, made him cringe before giving Sai an awkward smile. Why was he so careless? Sai had a way with words, of using them with brutal efficiency. This particular question made him feel like he'd just been punched in the gut. 

"Sorry! But hey, you survived!" Sai didn't look convinced and he didn't feel convinced by his own words either. Sai was right, he'd been careless. Sai had been fine, but even as he pulled Sai out of the lake, his mind lingered on what if, even with his hands holding onto Sai's hands, warming them up from the coldness of the water. What if he'd lost someone else important to him? 

Even now, by the light of the fire with both of them safely on land and Sai starting to dry off, Naruto couldn't shake the feeling. Sai seemed unconcerned by what happened, but then few things broke through the mask he wore. The thought made him frown. He glanced back to Sai, who was watching the flames again. It was just for a moment, but Naruto saw a shiver pass down through Sai's shoulders and along his spine before he suppressed it. 

That idiot. So determined to not show any feelings that he wouldn't even admit he was cold. Naruto didn't ask again, knew he'd get more denials that anything was wrong. Instead he eased his own jacket off his shoulders. Sai looked out of the corner of his eyes before looking away again. Taking his jacket off was a normal thing to do, nothing he needed to do anything about. 

Quickly, before Sai could knock it off, Naruto reached over and put his jacket over Sai's shoulders.

"I don't need it." Sai tried to shrug it off but Naruto held onto his shoulders, kept his jacket where it was.

"You're shivering, dumbass. Let someone else help you. We're teammates after all!" It didn't feel like it was a teammate thing, though. If someone else had needed his jacket, he would have given it to them too, but it felt different seeing Sai in it. It made something sit heavily in his stomach, something unfamiliar, to see Sai wearing something that belonged to him. Despite his previous protests, Sai didn't wriggle his way out of his jacket or away from his hands. Instead Sai looked at him. For a moment there was a question in his eyes, a question that Naruto didn't understand, before it vanished. 

"Fine." The acceptance made Naruto beam, even if he didn't know what question Sai had been asking him. He let go of Sai's shoulders, ignored how he missed the feeling of holding onto Sai as he settled back down next to him. 

They fell silent. The crackle and pop of the fire, the distant call of an owl filled the silent between them as Naruto poked at the fire with a stick to keep it going. It didn't need it at all, but it was something to do with his restless hands. He was thinking about Sai while he did it, even though he'd fixed the problem, made sure that Sai wasn't cold by building the fire and giving him his jacket. His jacket, which Sai shifted in, making him open his mouth to object to him trying to get out of it, before he realised Sai was putting his arms into the sleeves.

Sai wasn't trying to get out of wearing it. In fact, despite the unreadable expression on his face, Sai appeared to be making himself comfortable in it, like a cat turning a circle on a cushion before curling up to fall asleep on it. The sight of Sai looking comfortable in his jacket made Naruto's heart ache.

Wait. The realisation hit Naruto like when someone would flick him dead between the eyes to wake him up in class. Why did Sai wearing his jacket make his heart ache? He was just doing it as an apology, a way to make up for his earlier mess-up, because he'd do it for anyone. It shouldn't fill him with longing to touch Sai, to slide his hands under his jacket and touch his chest. To turn his chin up to face him, meet his dark eyes straight on before leaning in to kiss him. 

Naruto tried to push that thought back. He didn't want to kiss Sai! Although, now he was thinking about it and couldn't stop thinking about it, no matter how hard he tried to stop, he could remember other times he'd felt the urge to touch Sai. When Sai was stretching before they'd set out on a mission, his back arched in a way that made him want to reach out and run his hand down along his back. When Sai appeared in front of him while he was sitting down, getting a sudden eyeful of his abs before he sat down, that made his stomach lurch. When they'd both been looking at an obstacle ahead of them, and he turned to find Sai looking at him like he had a plan, and how it made him grin, how he'd felt like they were finally understanding each other. When Sai had rescued him, unexpectedly cool in a way that made him feel what he'd thought was envy but he was now realising, with a creeping sensation, was in fact something very different. 

It was longing. He hadn't wanted to be cool like Sai was then. He'd wanted Sai to pull him into his arms and kiss him like he was the hero in some cheesy romantic story. It seemed so obvious now that he couldn't believe he hadn't realised earlier. He was a complete idiot. How could he be so oblivious to his own feelings? 

With a groan of frustration, Naruto hid his face in his knees and hoped that Sai hadn't noticed his blushing. It was embarrassing to realise how strongly he felt for Sai, even more embarrassing to realise it on a mission when he was alone with Sai, nobody to distract Sai as he desperately covered it up. Naruto knew it'd be near impossible, knew how bad he was at hiding his feelings. His only hope was Sai wouldn't get it, didn't understand what romantic feelings were and didn't realise that Naruto had fallen for him. 

That hope didn't feel particularly good, though. Pining for someone who'd never return his feelings because he wasn't capable of understanding them was depressing, the thought made his shoulders sag. 

A hand lightly touching the top of his head made him jump, look up even though he could feel his cheeks still burning. Sai was suddenly closer to him than before. His thigh was pressed up against Naruto's as he leaned in, and the closeness made Naruto's heart leap into his mouth. Naruto could smell himself on his own jacket as Sai got in close, much closer than Sai usually got to anyone.

"In my book, it says that lending your jacket is a common thing to do if you're dating someone." Naruto's eyes widened, realising with alarm exactly where this conversation was going and wanting it to stop immediately. 

"What, do you seriously think-" 

"Naruto, do you want to date me?" 

"Why do you think I'd want to date you?"

"You're blushing." Naruto opened his mouth, about to argue that no, he wasn't blushing even though he clearly was, when the expression on Sai's face finally reached him through his face. Sai face's didn't look blank, or smug, or have a fake smile on it. It looked like he was nervous, even had the slightest hint of pink in it that made Naruto's breath catch. "It's okay if you want my dick." 

He should have expected Sai being incredibly blunt and crude instead of being romantic. It still made him splutter, from a mixture of hearing Sai saying the word 'dick' while being so close to his face and the sudden, unexpected possibility that Sai might want him too. The shock was enough to make him blurt out the first thing on his mind. 

"You want my dick?" Sai rubbed at his cheek thoughtfully, still with the tiniest hint of a flush on it, before giving Naruto a smile that didn't look as fake as usual. 

"As much as I want anything." It wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear, made him narrow his eyes before he grabbed Sai's hand. It fitted in his hand comfortably, just like it had when he was pulling Sai out of the lake earlier, fitted like it was supposed to be there. Sai might have made this confession unnecessarily weird and filled with dicks, but if Sai was going to make this happen, he was going to do this properly. 

"I like you. I really, really like you and want to kiss you," Sai opened his eyes at that, even looked surprised at it. "I mean, the other stuff is – well, uh, we can talk about that later," Naruto could feel his cheeks going even redder at the thought of talking about sex with someone as relentlessly blunt as Sai, but he didn't let himself get distracted by it, or the thought of what that might be like. Later. "Can I kiss you?" Sai reached up, hands cupping his cheeks, and pulled him in for a kiss as soon as the question was out of his mouth.

Sai's lips were soft against his. For all their respective brashness and bluntness, it was a gentle, almost hesitant kiss. It was just what Naruto wanted, washed over the longing he'd somehow managed to consciously miss for months even if he felt it in his bones. When they pulled back, he let his forehead rest against Sai's. It felt right, until an unpleasant question popped into his mind. With anyone else, the kiss might have been enough to reassure him. With Sai, someone who'd never been allowed to have his own feelings, his own wants and needs, it wasn't. 

"Do you really want this?" He didn't want to force him into it. Sai let out a sigh like he was being incredibly stupid. 

"Do you think I'd kiss you otherwise?" Oh. That seemed reasonable, it was a good enough an answer for him, but Sai continued anyway. "I'm still learning what wanting things might be like. But yes, I...want you to kiss me. I've wanted that for a while." Naruto's heart ached at the slight waver, how determined Sai looked despite that uncertainty. He hated that Sai never had the chance to want anything before and was determined to make up for it now. He leaned in to kiss him again, his hands going to hold onto Sai's shoulders as he did. He felt the weave of his jacket under his hands and thought of how right Sai looked in it. As much as he loved that jacket, if Sai asked, he might let him keep it. He might let him have it even if he didn't. It looked better on him anyway.


End file.
